Were Ralphie's parents irresponsible?

Funny - no ?

Back in the days of Red Ryders in EVERY home and guns where all could get them if needed = there were no "mass shootings" in schools or malls :banghead: [ oh we didn't have malls,forgot ].

Children were raised with something that is missing now BIGTIME = manners,and the ability to LISTEN to an adult !.

Considering the trade off,I say it was MUCH,MUCH better back then !.

And yes,firing the R.R. with the lever not at full lock was a VERY good lesson that you learned FAST !.

Yes, but you're talking about a movie here and more importantly, that boys are going to learn by doing stupid stuff even if they "know better." When my son is old enough and seems responsible enough to listen to firearm safety instructions and view a BB gun as a real gun, he'll get one, plus the instructions, plus some observation time before he gets to run off to the backyard without a parent present. We have chickens and dogs who will NOT be the target of any boyhood shenanigans.

I had free reign of a Sheridan/Benjamin pump air rifle when I was a kid, but that was when I was older and after I had gone through hunter's safety. The only time I ever did anything I shouldn't have with it was when I shot my friend's older brother in the butt/leg with it when they were fighting. I was like 20 yards away and had used it enough that I was sure 1 pump wouldn't do anything (the BB moved slowly enough that I could watch it to the target). I was right, although I hadn't planned on what to do after the older brother turned his attention to me. Good thing I had a 20 yard head start

So even with good parental instruction (dad taught and observed) and institutional instruction (hunter's safety course), I still gravitated towards the stupid. At least my dad's teachings stuck with me enough to know that I'll need to teach my kiddo that a BB gun = real gun and should be handled as such.

Now we have gun safety courses and hunter safety courses and CCW permits and bike helmets and MADD and SADD and child proof locks and child proof medicine bottles and just about every conceivable method of making sure we are safe at all times. Smoking is bad and drinking is bad and sex is bad and on and on and on.
Yet we still have drunk drivers and STD's and accidental shootings and bicycle accidents and cancer and kids still get into stuff they shouldn't.

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Now hold on.

Every single one of those things you just mentioned, from accidental shooting injuries to STDs and head injuries and unwanted pregnancy, etc., etc. have rates that are all WAY down from where they were back in the GOOD old days when we didn't talk about risks, didn't have available and use protective devices, didn't have organizations working to improve awareness and reduce unfortunate outcomes.

Sometimes these safety-minded folks seem overbearing, and sometimes they manage to go a little astray maybe, but society has GREATLY benefitted from everything from hearing protection to safety seats, bike helmets, STD education, drunk driving laws, and so forth.

Rose colored glasses showing us beautiful pictures of how peaceful and safe life used to be back before all this safety nonsense really don't help anyone.

And that decoration of the kid with his tongue stuck to the pole...where did you get that? I seriously have a great need to get at least one of those, possibly 5, if they can still be found.

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I've had that for a long time and have no idea where it came from. It's one of those that you sit on the table rather than a tree ornament. I have seen the tree ornament on Amazon but I don't know if it talks like mine. As soon as I get the decorations out I will post a pic. Hopefully this weekend.

Sam there is no doubt in my mind that all of the things you mention are true. Life expectancy is up and in general we live longer and safer lives. My point was that no matter what you do to make people "safer" there will always be things that happen. Call it survival of the fittest, Murphy's law or whatever. People now, then and always will do stupid stuff.
I don't have any facts but I seriously doubt that STD's are down though that's probably more a result of the "general sluttiness" of the population today. Teen pregnancies are also still extremely high despite many years of sex education in public schools. I remember my 7th grade sex classes. They were a hoot!

I don't have any facts but I seriously doubt that STD's are down though that's probably more a result of the "general sluttiness" of the population today. Teen pregnancies are also still extremely high despite many years of sex education in public schools.

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I'm going to have to give myself a warning for going off topic, but...

According to the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the birth rate among young women ages 15 to 19 fell 6 percent last year, to 29.4 births per thousand, the lowest rate in the 73 years the government has been collecting the data. The decline was across all racial and ethnic groups.

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http://www.nbcnews.com/health/teen-birth-rate-hits-historic-low-officials-say-8C11086339

(And the "general sluttiness" of the population is far from new. Folks have been doing what comes naturally ... and unnaturally ... for much longer than we've been recording things. Our kind of oddball neo-Victorianism prudishness of the late 19th and early 20th century was a statistical anomaly in human history, somewhat unique to that time and culture. It couldn't hold out for long against human impulse and didn't. The "radical" inhibition of the 60s would have shocked NO ONE throughout much of history.)

My point here is that these things that make us safer ... make us safer!

Reversing two of your sentences from before, and adding a conjunction...
"My point was that no matter what you do to make people "safer" there will always be things that happen." BUT "Life expectancy is up and in general we live longer and safer lives. "

No body ever said we'd eliminate problems and disease and injury. But if YOUR kid doesn't put a bb in his eye or his neighbor's kid's eye, then the safety steps you take are worth it for you! A demonstrable reduction in injury and death is entirely a worthy reason to take precautions! All of life is chance and probability. If you can stack your own deck so that it becomes less likely that you and yours suffer -- DO SO and do so gladly.

I learned to drive before lap belts. I remember driving the first car my dad bought with seat belts. Wheeeeeeeee, you could throw it through the turns - a big American Chevy boat - and not have to hold on to the door to keep from sliding across the bench seat.

Goodyear finally introduced a radial tire in America in '65 and the handling started to improve some, but the car companies fought radials every step of the way for years. Yeah, the good old days. And people pay a lot of money for those old clunker cars. They can have them.



"Folks didn't realize they might have to live a long time with the results of their free-wheeling ways."

Define long time.

I just looked it up on some site. When I was born in 1950, the life expectancy of a white, male, baby was only 66.5 years.

My father didn't know back then that he would be 89.5 when he died in 2011.

jrdolall said:

I've had that for a long time and have no idea where it came from. It's one of those that you sit on the table rather than a tree ornament. I have seen the tree ornament on Amazon but I don't know if it talks like mine. As soon as I get the decorations out I will post a pic. Hopefully this weekend.

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Thanks!

I'm dead serious about getting one like that. My brothers (and younger sister) would get a kick out of it. If only Mom and Dad were alive, too!

I'm not going to tell you which of the five of us kids was personally involved in the old tongue-stuck-on-a-pole incident, but I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.

And I'll not confirm whether or not you're correct, either...

tarosean said:

The only instruction I wished I had received as a kid with a BB gun, was to never pull the trigger with the Red Ryders lever open.

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There's nothing like earning that blue line across the knuckles to cause a very young man to emit the foul language he picked up from his older brothers.

76shuvlinoff said:

There's nothing like earning that blue line across the knuckles to cause a very young man to emit the foul language he picked up from his older brothers.

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OK, you lost me. Why do you not pull the trigger with the lever open?

I THINK they used to have a problem where the trigger wouldn't reset and the lever would not operate properly or swing freely or something.

Then you'd have to partially disassemble it to figure out how to put it back the way it was supposed to be.

I don't know if the newer ones have the problem or not. I don't recall either doing this, or having this problem if I did it, with my old lever action BB gun...but it may not have been a Red Ryder. It was older then I was, though, I remember that. If I still had it, it would probably be around 60 years old. Used to belong to an older cousin of mine and an uncle gave it to me.

OK, you lost me. Why do you not pull the trigger with the lever open?

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The lever slams shut and inflicts serious pain across your fingers. 40yrs later I'd swear I can feel it like yesterday.

The lever slams shut and inflicts serious pain across your fingers. 40yrs later I'd swear I can feel it like yesterday.

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....and I did it more than once.

It was one of those, "Well, I'd better not do that again" moments in the orange orchard.

Sam1911's posts in this thread are pure gold.

That said, I've been watching this thread with interest, and now want to chime in.

From my perspective (as someone younger than at least a good chunk of the posters in this topic), common sense and personal responsibility go a long way. I didn't grow up shooting firearms. My father was an ex-military, ex-cop and while we weren't taught to be afraid of guns, Dad never just proactively took us out shooting. So, wound up being 'cool' with guns, but never handled them.

That said, when I started getting exposed to shooting as an adult (at the prompting of my son) I can vividly remember the first time I heard the All Hallowed Four Firearms Safety Rules. I remember thinking, "Yep. Yep. Yep. Of course." And I don't mean that flippantly - I got that it was a dreadfully serious thing. Nonetheless, there's nothing in those safety rules that a rational, sensible person could discern if they put some horsepower to it.

If there's a difference between then (Ralphie's day) and now, it lies in two places, IMHO:
- With the slow decline of the 'outdoor' lifestyle, people - and specifically kids - are exposed to REAL guns, knives, bows/arrows, and other such things at a far lower rate than before.
- As a result, we've lost the respect and 'cultural common sense' that ought to surround these things.